


alder and yew

by parrishes



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Smut, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-05-03 13:14:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5292182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parrishes/pseuds/parrishes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vanessa might have a crush on the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“The required textbook is  _Confronting the Faceless._ As you are all NEWT students, I would expect you to have the book by now. But, if you don’t, write to… Flourish and Blotts, as soon as possible to get a copy. Now, I’ll pass out the syllabus…” 

One tap, and the black ink bled from the tip of his wand, staining the parchment. A lazy wave, and the syllabi floated through the aisles, slipping themselves on to the desks with a comforting whoosh. 

This new professor is nothing like what Vanessa had been expecting. Firstly, he is  _American_. An American in Hogwarts was practically unheard of - the last American who had taught at Hogwarts had been in 1875, she had checked. American wizards usually went to the Salem-Danvers Institute of Magic, the New Orleans Academy of Witchcraft and Wizardry, or the Albuquerque School of Sorcery. She would assume he attended the last, judging from his accent. What was he doing so far from home?

Secondly, he is so  _young_ , probably not more than thirty or maybe even twenty-five, most likely still not done sowing his wild oats. How did the headmaster think this strange man was qualified to teach them to defend themselves? 

She’ll have to have a talk with Headmaster Murray about it after class. Mina will be taking Study of Ancient Runes then, so her father’s office should be empty. The professor - Chandler, he said his name was; Ethan Chandler - is leaning back against the large mahogany table, lanky legs casually uncrossed, discussing exam formats - a combination of practice and theory; yes, very good…  _He’s very tall_ , she realizes. And handsome, with his dark brown eyes and his longish hair and beard. Exceedingly masculine. 

Defense Against the Dark Arts last year had been a trainwreck, what with poor Professor Helsing violently dying right in the middle of it.  _Perhaps this year won’t be so terrible_ , she thinks, as Professor Chandler divvies up homework and exam percentages on the chalkboard, appreciating his broad back and thanking American schools for apparently not mandating formless robes. 

-

The iron days of December have come and gone. Her birthday has passed - she’s now eighteen, and not any more enlightened about her DADA professor’s circumstances than she was at the beginning of the year. He’s the subject of furious gossip - they say that he killed several Dark wizards back in America, that he’s a mercenary of some sort, that he was the only one willing to take (or able to handle) the position. 

He’s a tough grader. She’s clinging by the edge of her teeth to her A, teetering on the border of B-plus, A-minus. Defense Against the Dark Arts has always been her best subject - at least, it was until he began teaching it. Vanessa won’t pretend like it doesn’t irritate her. 

She’s on her way to his office, coming to pick up a graded exam she wasn’t in class to receive - there had been a bit of a mishap in Care of Magical Creatures. The professor had sent off a note explaining the situation so she wasn’t  _too_  worried, but Professor Chandler could relaxed about attendance one day and strict another, so she just hopes he’s in a good mood. 

When she gets to the classroom, she sees from the entrance that his office door is ajar, the light down low, soft music wafting out. From her place under the dragon skeleton she hears, “and in the lissome light of evening, help me, Cosmia; I’m grieving.” She waits until the song ends to venture up the small staircase. 

“Professor?” Her voice is unusually quiet. She thinks it’s because she doesn’t want to disturb the peaceful, amber-hued ambiance of the room; it’s certainly not because she’s shy around him. That’s not it, not at all. 

That can’t be it. 

He’s grading papers, a Muggle pen stuck between his teeth, lips pursed around the end. More and more professors are eschewing the impracticality of quill and ink for the easier pen, she’s noticed. At the sound of her voice, he looks up from the parchment he’s been scanning. From the length, she assumes it’s a monster of an essay. 

She doesn’t realize, until he speaks, that she’s been staring at his mouth. 

“Here to pick up your test?” he asks, eyes going back the paper when she nods. “God, I wish they’d all just use pens. These ink stains are fucking ridiculous.” 

Ah, yes, she’d forgotten about his potty mouth, the way he’d casually curse during lectures to emphasize a point - as in, “if you don’t counter a spell in time, you are  _fucking screwed_.” Professor Chandler always makes class entertaining, if nothing else can be said for him when all is done. 

He hands her the exam, wordlessly. She skims it back to front, going over his notes and corrections. When she reads the cover, she sees her grade. 

“A B?” she asks, hoping the disappointment doesn’t leak through to her voice. 

“A B,” he confirms, still reading. “You left out some important things.”

“I answered all parts of the question as directed. Why this?”

He puts down the parchment, and stares up at her. “Because your performance in the practical half of this class tells me you can do better. If you write your exams like you cast spells, you’ll be at an A in no time.” 

And she sees it: an opening, a segue. She takes her shot. 

“Have you taught before? Back in America?”

He shakes his head, sips what appears to be coffee. “No. This is my first time ever being a professor.” 

“How old are you?” 

“Younger than you’d think, probably,” he responds. He’s being cagey because he knows what she’s up to. He has the whole school buzzing, wondering what brought him there; Ethan won’t let her mine him for information. 

“I expected a number.” His eyebrows shoot up at that.  _You did not just order your professor to tell you his age. Good job, Vanessa._

“You expected?” 

“I thought since we were in private you would be more forthcoming. No one knows anything about you.” 

Professor Chandler’s eyes remain narrow. “Why does anything in my past matter now? I teach you. That’s what I’m here to do.”

“It doesn’t matter, not at all. But it doesn’t make for a very good relationship. We students don’t feel like we can talk to you.”

“But you’re here talking to me right now.” 

“I came to pick up a test,” she says, irritated; from the look on her professor’s face, she gathers he is, too. “I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”

As she goes to walk out the door, the heavy beams in the ceiling dark in the nocturnal light of the classroom, she hears, “I’m twenty-five,” coming from the man behind her. Vanessa turns back around, sits down in the chair at the front of the desk, test still crumpled in her hand.

_He’s younger than I thought. Much younger._

“Where did you go to school? Albuquerque, I think, from your accent?”

He chuckles. “No, actually. I am from New Mexico, but I went to New Orleans for school.” That would explain the way his words slur together sometimes, smoothly, like cream or good whiskey. But his laugh is a little gritty - hoarse, like sandpaper.

“Why?” 

“I thought the entirety of Texas was a big enough gap to put between me and my family.” 

He doesn’t like his family - that’s interesting. As she’s processing this, she notices his wand resting on the desktop, how it’s carved with geometric patterns. It’s a long wand, light, sandy-hued like the desert he had left behind. 

Vanessa wonders, in spite of herself, what else about him is long - hair, beard, wand, fingers…

He notices where her eyes are, and says, “It’s yew. Thirteen and three-quarter inches. Phoenix feather. If you want the best wands in the United States, you go to Boston.” 

She pulls out her own wand, lays it on the table next to his. “Alder. Eleven inches. Phoenix feather, too. If you want the best wandmaker in England, go to Ollivander’s in London.” 

“You Britons set such a store by Ollivander. There are other wandmakers, you know.” 

“We love Ollivander because he’s the best, obviously,” she replies, laugh slowly bubbling out of her chest. The honey-tinged light in his office under the green lampshade, the night sky outside, the folk music coming from his record player - wait, his record player? How did he get that to work? 

Sure enough, the vinyl is spinning, needle down, even though the power cord remains curled up on the table behind the desk. 

“How did you get your record player to work? There’s no electricity at Hogwarts.” The music is softer now, but perhaps she’s gotten used to it. The woman continues with her warbling twangy voice, singing, “bless our house and its heart so savage.” 

“There are ways,” he says, but doesn’t elaborate. He’s clearly expecting her to ask how, but when she gets up to make her way back to the Slytherin dormitory, he looks… a little disappointed, actually. 

“Good night, professor,” she murmurs, as she slides out the door. Ethan watches her leave, assesses her, tries not to watch his _student’s_  slim figure twist around the stair or think about her dark hair tumbling over her shoulders as she goes down the steps. 

If Vanessa had been performing terribly in his class, it would have made it easier for him to push aside her obvious prettiness. But she’s by far one of most talented witches he’s ever seen, and the immense, raw  _power_  lurking behind her spells is just as intriguing as the twinkle in her eyes. 

Ethan sips at his black coffee, turns up his music, and determinedly continues on with grading. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The songs whose lyrics are used in this fic are “Cosmia” and “Sadie” by Joanna Newsom, from her albums Ys and The Milk-Eyed Mender respectively. I imagine Ethan has a blank vinyl disc that he’s spelled to play anything in his iTunes library (Ethan is a half-blood, and is definitely aware of Muggle music and technology, etc.) and syncing the disc to his computer was a bear.
> 
> I also decided to make Ethan’s wand a yew wand because the surname Ives is a compound name involving “yew” - it can mean “a bow from a yew tree” or so I’ve heard.


	2. patience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ethan and Vanessa reunite after spending summer break apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if I want to make this story have an actual plot, or if it's going to be a series of shorts set in the Wizarding universe. But either way, I've been working on this piece for a long time, and after the finale I decided to finish it - for all of us shippers whose hearts have been stomped on. I'm sorry, guys. Here's hoping we feel better soon. Please enjoy my attempt at easing our pain.

The Order’s high-gabled house in Cornwall is still dark and foreboding, looming before her, but the noise and bustle inside makes it feel warm, welcoming - not at all like the mausoleum it was when she left it as a child. The coffered front door still shines, the intimidating wolf's-head knocker is still bolted into the middle, and Vanessa feels eight years old again, leaving the seaside town of her early childhood behind for London's smog and narrow streets. This time, though, she's saying hello instead of goodbye. 

The first people to embrace her are Mina and Jonathan, naturally, recently emerged from from the cocoon of newlywed happiness, fluttering towards her like moths. Sembene is next, his firm hug revealing the quiet strength she’s so relied on him for. Victor and John come to greet her as she makes her way towards the stairs, bags in her hands; they are both genuinely happy to see her, but Vanessa can see the tension flickering between them like sparks. Caitriona is still off on her mission, buried in some foreign country's dim, dusty archives, but should be back soon. Dr. Seward is still at her practice, counseling those who need it. 

As she rounds the corner, she sees Malcolm and Gladys in the kitchen, who wave. Kaetenay is there too, tall and impassable as always, although he gives her a secret smile as she passes by the door. She thinks she sees a glimpse of Joan and her silver-cropped hair, but the view collapses in on itself before she can make certain. 

Ethan is coming down the stairs as she is going up, all broad shoulders and lean limbs, limbs she's only spent a short time familiarizing herself with. Vanessa pauses on the landing to greet him, only to be ignored as he continues to the kitchen. He doesn’t even glance in her direction.

Something is wrong, obviously. She just doesn’t know what it is.

* * *

 

Vanessa sits in her room, staring out at the incoming tide, foam flinging itself onto the beach in the lavender twilight. She knows that Ethan will come back, eventually, after the meeting ends. All she has to do is wait. 

His silence wouldn’t be so frustrating if she knew what was upsetting him. She hasn’t seen him or heard from him in months, not since she left after the scant week they spent together, at the end of the spring term - her first summer since leaving Hogwarts has been spent in isolation with Joan, training and preparing for battles to come; a summer spent in complete - and sometimes overwhelming - separation from the rest of the world. 

Ethan does return, quicker than she expected. She knows the meeting isn’t over yet because the beam of light on the mahogany-paneled stairway grows to a wide swathe and then shrinks back to nothingness; someone must have closed the door behind him, the same way he’s shutting hers, his silence terse. He must have left early.

Vanessa can’t decide if ripping the heavy shroud of quiet that’s settled over the room would be more awkward than letting continue to it spread over them. Luckily, Ethan makes the decision for her, reproach barely hidden in the timbre of his voice. 

“What did you do all summer, Van?” he asks, without preamble, and the curt, measured calmness of his words concerns her. Does he really not know?

“I was with Joan,” she says. “Training. She said it was necessary.” 

“Oh, I know,” he says. “I know exactly what you were up to in the woods. Do you know what I was doing?”

“No.”

“Did you bother to check? Because I told you. I let you know. I hoped that you would do the same for me,” Ethan responds. Somehow, without noticing, they’ve maneuvered themselves into the middle of the room on the oval rug, each ready for a showdown.  

She remembers a multitude of owls swooping across the threshold, a series of envelopes dropped on the doorstep in the dead of night. Joan had evaluated each piece of mail - most were junk and went directly into the fire, but Vanessa remembers there were several letters that Joan saved yet never opened. Did Ethan write to her?

Ethan’s glare is flashing, dark. Vanessa thinks that she can see the occasional dart of spring green in his gaze - the eyes of the wolf that sometimes come out during the waxing moon - but aside from his feral glower, his proximity to her reminds her that he is, indeed, very human. They’re close enough that his warm breath ghosts over her face, close enough that she could kiss him or bite him. 

Both options are good, but she goes with the first. Her kiss is harsh, teeth digging into his lip (but not hard enough to constitute a bite) because she’s annoyed with him for being annoyed with her. Ethan answers her, eagerly, the way he always does. There is a thick, earthy taste in his mouth, something she recognizes as the taste of rare meat, which only enhances the wildness of his kiss. He wrenches himself away, before mimicking her actions and gently sinking his teeth into her lower lip, ending with a sharp nip that spreads the faint taste of copper over her tongue. She's missed this. She's missed _him._  

“I know we didn't have enough time, but I told you, I was with Joan all summ- ah!” 

“I wrote to you,” he growls, as his hand slides down into the waist of her skirt, fingers rubbing against her, gone damp with want since she first saw the frustrated clench of his jaw on the stair. “Against protocol, against orders, every single week. Were all those letters wasted, Vanessa?”

“If I have the chance to read them, I’ll let you know,” she pants back, pressing herself against him, hoping that he’ll move his fingers higher, go deeper, go faster. Anything. 

She doesn’t know if those letters were even hers, and considering how he’s touching her at the moment, she doesn’t really care.

Their lips find each other again, Ethan’s tongue a sudden plundering presence in her mouth. Her hands are in his hair while he grips her waist and turns her, leading her in their favorite dance, until she’s leaning back against the desk. Vanessa takes his hand and brings it back between her legs, his fingers still roaming around the outer borders of her heat. He chokes out _muffliato,_ sealing the room against curious ears before bending down to kiss her more, his normal ferocity replaced with something akin to tenderness.

At least, he's tender enough until he spins her around so quickly that it almost doesn’t register, bends her face-down onto the desk and folds her skirt up, trapping it between her body and the wood. He worms his thigh between hers, knocks her feet far apart so that she’s straddling his leg, her own spread. He takes a brief moment to turn her head to the side so that her nose is no longer flattened against the cherry-stained surface, letting the hand not between her legs travel over the arc of her cheekbone before vanishing. The position forces her breasts flat against the desktop, but it's a mild discomfort that neither she nor Ethan take much notice of.

There’s something almost punishing about his movements, something rough and brusque - she’s been bent over his desk before (her idea, not his), but she’s never felt so anxious, like a naughty child caught in the act of misbehaving. In some strange, perverse way, the idea of him _disciplining_ her is incredibly appealing. 

All of a sudden, a cool breeze washes over her limbs, but the ache in her core becomes hotter, her heartbeat quicker. She twists her head to try and look back at him, but finds that she can’t actually lift it from the desk. 

When she tries to ask him about it, she finds that she can’t talk, either. 

“Let me tell you about this spell,” Ethan whispers in her ear, his low voice like gravel, and she feels the rasp travel from her ears all the way down to where she wants him to touch her. “I picked it up in a shitty dive in Wyoming, a seedy little place with shady people; you would have liked it. Joan had sent me to infiltrate, so that’s what I did. I came across some other werewolves and their wizard friends, who showed me this spell.”

She grunts in response. It seems that she can still make noise, but can’t actually speak. _Damn him and his affinity for non-verbals._

“It’s a modification on the Full-Body Bind. It keeps you mostly still, keeps you nice and quiet without entirely ruining the fun. I, for one, have no interest in fucking a statue.” 

_Oh._  So that’s how it’s going to be this time. She’s utterly helpless beneath him, like clay for him to mold and play with, and Vanessa almost comes from the realization itself. She can’t move but thinks she can feel herself reddening and _blooming_ , seeping through the cotton of her underwear, because the pulse between her legs is like a tide. 

“I can smell you,” Ethan hisses, grinding himself slowly against her, pulling her panties halfway down her thighs, feeling her try and fail to meet him halfway. “How wet you are, how badly you want it. Do you know what that does to a wolf?”

Vanessa moans behind her teeth. He takes the plaintive sound to mean “no.”

 “It makes us a little _crazy_ , the way your smells get into our heads. You’re driving me _fucking insane_.” His jeans scrape against her bare buttocks, and she snarls at the sensation. She keens when he does it again with more force, impossibly aware of the tenderness and slickness at her center. 

The sound of his zipper coming undone is the next thing that she hears. She moans again, teeth clenched, beyond done with his teasing. She’s ready, so ready, standing with her legs wide and her ass in the air and her sex aching for the hard length of him. 

But when he touches her again, he picks up where he left off: smooth, gentle grinds; the head of his cock probing her opening, occasionally brushing over her clit as if by accident. Ethan is in no hurry - his lazy, intermittent pace is beyond frustrating when all she wants are the hard drives of his hips against her, his cock inside her. This is torture in its purest form. 

“What would you do if I just left you here like this?” he questions in her ear, breath warm on her neck, the tips of his hair tickling her, still rocking. “Alone, horny, exposed. Stuck to this desk where anyone could walk in and see you. Would you beg them to touch you?”

Vanessa’s muffled cry sounds like a “no”, but he’s not done yet. He feels how agitated she is, how she tries to stretch back into him, only to meet resistance from the spell. 

“Maybe I should leave you, high and dry - well, not so dry, in this case,” he chuckles. “Maybe that will teach you some patience, give you a taste of what it means to  _want_. You have to learn sometime. I did, this past summer."  

Her frantic wail is clearly a “no.” He’s gone back to using his hands, cock conspicuously absent, rubbing a slow circle around her entrance with the pad of his middle finger, now taking particular care to avoid the nub at the top of her vulva. 

God, how she wishes he’d just take her by the hips and fuck her, hard and fast or slow and gentle, she doesn’t care, but she _needs_  him. She’s soaking -  _flooding_  would be more accurate - her cunt is aching and her clit is throbbing; she’s so, so _close,_ her head is spinning and she just _needs_ him to touch her-

But he does the opposite. He withdraws from touching her entirely, after giving the red, swollen lips between her legs one last, light trace. It’s so tempting to just drive into her heat, slick with want and petal-soft. But he’s doing... something, or at least, he was. Buried in the back of his mind is some half-forgotten memory of a plan, something about a lesson, but what the lesson was he can’t recall. All he sees is Vanessa, frozen and wanton and desperate, a red haze pricking at the corners of his vision. The salt-sour, earthen smell of her is overwhelming, filling, wrapped around his head. 

When his touch disappears completely, she buries her head into the desk and moans as she surrenders to the feel of her frantic heartbeat humming through her. Vanessa hears soft groans behind her, as he takes himself in hand and smears her wetness over his cock, stroking himself to the hypnotizing sight of her spread wide open before him. Her entire body is tense, vibrating with need like a string stretched taut, about to snap. 

If only she could move! She'd always been good at winning the games they found themselves playing, drawing Ethan in and ending the way he'd prowl around her, then shy away. Now, forced into stillness and unable to persuade or speak or touch, she's at his whim, and he is not inclined to be merciful. She can feel her blood rushing from heart to head, heart to center, want spreading spreading  _spreading_  out in a circle. The wanting is a river, a long twisting column of flame, wringing her out. But no flood, no earthquake, no bloodletting, no victory - not yet. 

Abruptly, she realizes Ethan has stopped. With his clean hand, he tenderly brushes wayward strands of hair out of her face before running it down her back, vertebra by vertebra. She shivers as his broad palm smooths over each little hill, deliberately, the sensation fiery even through her clothes.

Vanessa shifts back into his touch as much as the spell will allow. She's not entirely motionless - she can wiggle in tiny increments from side to side, forward and back, but she does not have the use of her limbs or the ability to move freely. She squirms when his hand reaches her ass, his fingers feather-light against the pale skin. She jolts in surprise when he gently, lightly scrapes a nail (and then two, and then three) down the soft flesh at _just_ the right pressure, only to be violently snapped back into place by the spell's power. The force of it drives the air from her lungs, the sensation of it almost like an invisible hand around her throat.

"The more you fight it, the tighter it gets," Ethan says, digits wandering lower and lower, watching Vanessa's toes curl into the carpet the closer and closer he gets to her core. But he pulls away before he reaches it, and her frustrated shriek echoes through the room. "Good girl," he murmurs, as she glares up at him from the corner of her eye. 

It's time. He's harder than he's ever been in his entire life, fluid already seeping from the slit in his cock, and he's not sure how he didn't notice it before. Vanessa writhes in front of him, hissing and mewling and sinuous like a cat, hands clawlike and white-knuckled. 

He thrusts into her without warning, right to the hilt, listening to the sharp exhale from her nose.  _God, yes_. He takes half a moment to appreciate the way her walls clench around him, but his erection is painful and Vanessa's half-lidded eyes and blushing cheekbone inflame him more than he thought possible, so he grips her hips and sets a punishing pace. 

Having been denied his touch for months, been wanting his hands on her body and his cock inside her for weeks - after all of this, after the promise of _more_ and then having been denied it, Ethan feels bigger than she remembers him, or maybe she just doesn't want to relinquish the satisfaction of  _finally_ having him in her. She clings to him as he pulls out and twitches when he slams back in, like she was made to hold him - and if Joan and Mr. Lyle are to be believed, she may have been. 

Ethan is by no means unaffected by his own actions. He's just as on edge as she is, pounding into her with long, hard thrusts, withdrawing almost fully before sinking back in. After all his fleeting, calculated teasing, she's overwhelmed by the feeling of it, by the friction and the _heat_ of him.

He can feel Vanessa begin to spasm around him, feel her thighs quiver as much as they can within the spell's confines, and even though they've only spent a short time learning each other he knows it's a tale-tell sign that she's close. It should only be a few more thrusts; one, two - and then she collapses around him, groaning loudly through her closed mouth, the flush on her neck melting down to her collarbone. He almost follows her over the edge, but focuses on the feel of her skin against his palms, on slowing down his thrusts to help her ride the waves out. 

For all her impatience, her orgasm still hits with unexpected suddenness, vision gone white. For a few brief, incredible moments, her mind is devoid of anything except the feel of him moving, how she locks herself around him, how it makes her entire body shake. And then she crashes back to earth again, and Ethan hasn't let up at all. He keeps driving into her with the same frantic tempo as before, and despite the intensity of her climax she can feel herself still trembling, beginning to tighten all over again.

Ethan can feel it too. He shifts the angle of his hips, makes sure to brush the spot inside of her that makes her see stars, that would make her scream if she could every single time he enters her, and a high-pitched plea erupts from behind her mouth. His thrusts are beginning to lose finesse; although he still keeps the rhythm, his movements become jerkier, sharper, more unrefined.

He works one hand under the fabric of her skirt and slides it between her legs. She can feel his fingers skimming over her spread folds, how they accidentally brush over his own hardness before they finally reach the nub at the top of her vulva. She can feel his warm breath on her shoulder, feel his teeth graze the nape of her neck, before he rubs circles onto her clit, still fucking her hard and fast - just the way she wanted it. 

And it's enough, it's more than enough, it's  _too much_ \- and abruptly she realizes that he's released the spell because she's screaming, moaning, gasping, panting, and her voice is a stark, shrill echo in the hollow room. She claws for any sort of purchase she can find on the desk's smooth top, feeling the waves  _come_ and  _come_ and  _come._ It quakes from her center to her toes, and it surges along her torso to her head, and she jerks back into his thrusts to prolong it as much as she can. Even when she hears Ethan groan out several curses behind her, even when she feels him drive into her one last time before the rush of his semen fills her, it doesn't stop.

She's starting to think it will last forever when he helps ease her down, with slower and slower thrusts until his rhythm is unhurried and steady, almost as if he were rocking on his heels. Suddenly she realizes that she's sobbing, that there are tears in her eyes, as dizziness and darkness overtake her and she slumps towards the floor - until something catches her, something warm and solid and comforting.

Ethan scoops her into his arms, gently, feeling her still trembling with the aftershocks. He lays her down on the bed, before detaching her hand from its death grip on his forearm.

“Wait, don’t go,” she says. Even though her eyes remain closed, she blindly reaches out for him again. 

“I’ll be right back,” he soothes, smoothing her sweaty hair back from her face.

Vanessa hears him rummaging around in the dresser, first one drawer, and then another. He slides her stretched-out and sticky underwear down her legs, leaving her bare skin exposed to the cool air. He unbuttons her blouse, unhooks her bra, and maneuvers her arms like a doll so he can slip her favorite well-worn pajama top onto her body. 

Next comes the sound of running water, and then Ethan is sitting, quietly wiping her sex with a warm soft cloth, cleaning up their combined fluids. She tenses when he runs the cloth over her clit, and he can't help his thoughts - he’s sorely tempted to wedge a terrycloth-covered finger inside her and rub the tender little button until she comes again, but figures she’s had enough for the night. 

"I'm sorry about this," he says.

"About what?" she asks, eyes still closed, legs sprawled over his lap. 

"... This," he whispers, gesturing to her naked bottom half, the red marks from where the edge of the desk dug its way into her skin. "I don't know what I was thinking. I'm sorry."

"There's no need to be sorry," she murmurs, feeling him wipe the stickiness on her thighs away. "Just teach me that spell and then we'll be even." The wet cloth travels to her neck, and up to her forehead to clean the sweat from her hairline. 

Vanessa hears him chuckle and then he's kissing her, first her tender mouth, and then her forehead. "I will. I promise," he breathes out, his forehead leaning against hers. He lifts her slightly, and slips a fresh pair of underwear up her legs. She doesn't blink, just moves with him, lazy and pleasantly boneless.

The bed dips and Ethan stands, and she hears the sound of his zipper. "I'll be right back," he repeats. Noticing what appears to be a pout forming on her face, he tells her, "This is the last time," before sliding out of the room. He's back quickly with his own sleepwear, and she hears the rustle of his clothes falling to the floor. He grabs the cloth and quickly cleans himself off before kicking the dirty laundry into a pile, along with Vanessa's own discarded clothing. 

He slides on a fresh pair of boxers, flannel pants, and an old t-shirt - Cornwall is new to him, and chilly to boot - before toppling into bed beside her, pulling up the quilt. He kisses her shoulder, her temple, the crown of her head, before rolling onto his side and gathering her in his embrace. Even though her eyes remained closed, he could tell she wasn't asleep when he returned to her bedroom. He knew she had waited for him to come back before drifting off - which was impressive, all things considered - and it touched him, in a way he couldn't fully explain or describe. 

Now, however, she clings to his arm and hand and presses her back flush against him, knees drawn up like a child. He idly rubs her side and she stirs, stretches into his touch before settling down, soft sighs coming from her mouth as she falls asleep. 

Vanessa breathes against him - just breathes - and the sight of her hair is the last thing he sees until morning. 


End file.
